


Hounds of Tindalos

by driftingstar



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Angst, Gen, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Torture, akira makes terrible mistakes, dark themes, yuusaku torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driftingstar/pseuds/driftingstar
Summary: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Akira is already in hell and he will do anything to get his sister back.Set in an AU where Revolver doesn't make it in time to clear Yuusaku's name when Zaizen Akira captures him. Dark themes. Graphic torture.  Angst.  Akira character study.





	Hounds of Tindalos

**Author's Note:**

> "The Hounds of Tindalos are said to inhabit the angles of time. They are thought to be immortal and are believed to lust after something in humankind, and will follow victims through time and space to get it." (Frank Belknap Long)

Akira’s footsteps thud against glowing green tiles as he makes his descent down the spiraling staircase beneath the tower.  A snap of his fingers makes the white walls slide apart; glowing hexagons rearranging themselves into a neat archway.  With his heart in his throat, he steps through.

 

PLAYMAKER stares up at him with baleful green eyes. His wrists are chained above his head, thorny brambles impaling his avatar's body, trapping him in place. On a real human, such treatment would be unspeakably cruel, but on a virtual one, the jagged gashes could be repaired in an instant. The same cannot be said about the user’s mental state, however.

 

It has been exactly two days, twenty-two hours and forty-six minutes. Akira’s fists clench tighter.  Two days, twenty-two hours and forty-six minutes since PLAYMAKER had become his prisoner and during this time he had refused to say a word, falling silent after maintaining his innocence.

 

If PLAYMAKER was innocent, why is his only sister still unconscious?  

 

He takes a breath, donning a flimsy veneer of calm. The trembling in his fingers give him away. “Are you ready to talk?”  He is proud that the question comes out mild and diplomatic.  Like he's at a SOL Technology conference, speaking to a panel of arrogant, greedy investors.  “The sooner you tell me how to save my sister, the sooner you can go free.”

 

As usual, his plea is met only with stony silence.  PLAYMAKER looks as immovable as a marble statue, his face so immaculately blank that it makes Akira wonder if he was speaking to an NPC.

 

Hatred and fury explodes into his chest; hot and thick and gushing like lava.  A translucent moderator’s panel materializes in front of him and he vindictively tugs up the sliders.  It's all too satisfying as PLAYMAKER’s blank expression twists in pain as his breathing grows laboured and ragged as Akira slowly removes the realism filters, one by one.  

 

Now it's his turn to watch coldly as he writhes in agony, just as Aoi did. Every time he closes his eyes, he can hear her screams.  Picture the tears streaming down her cheeks as he realizes just how much he had failed her.

 

“Talk!” he barks, shattering whatever composure he was holding onto. “What did you do to her?!”

 

PLAYMAKER’s face is flushed with pain, eyes glassy as he feels every blue thorn piercing his body in perfect, vivid detail. Akira had been thorough with this program. And better yet, in this space he created within Link VRAINS, he can’t pass out from blood loss. Akira can tear him limb from limb and reassemble him to begin this all over again. He has all the time in the world.

 

“I… did… nothing…” the hacker forces out, glaring up at him with those inhumanly bright eyes.  “I told… you.”

 

That was not the answer Akira wanted.  A sharp gesture of his hands sends another thorned vine cracking through the air, drawing out another pained scream as it tears through simulated flesh and bone.  

 

“Why are you going so far?!” Akira yells, striking him again and again, glaring at his slumped figure as more scars are added to his avatar.  The vines wrap around his body, snaking around his neck and start to constrict, choking off his screams.   “Why are you making me do this?  What do you have against me that you would try to take away my only family?!”

 

It is only until the alerts flash red that he realizes he had gone too far and quickly orders the vines to go slack again.  PLAYMAKER collapses like a puppet with its strings cut and Akira only relaxes when he verifies that he's still breathing. He can't help but feel a stir of guilt as he watches his trembling form. Logically, it could be anyone wearing this avatar, but PLAYMAKER looks young. Maybe even Aoi’s age.

 

“Look,” he says, pitching his voice softer. “I don't want to keep hurting you.  And while I have all the time in the world, that's not the case for you, is it?”

 

No matter how stubborn his will is, his real body won't be able to hold out forever.  So long as his mind is trapped within Link VRAINS, his real self will waste away.  

 

“The human body can survive three days without water,” he continues on, his dress shoes tapping quietly on the stone as he advances. PLAYMAKER is shorter than him, but the vines hold him up to eye level. “You can't keep this up forever. Why don't you just make it easier on both of us and just give me what I want?”

 

For a long time, PLAYMAKER is silent.  But just as Akira begins to fear that he may have inadvertently broken him, he slowly lifts his head. A gaze so cold that Akira has to take a step back.

 

“I have nothing more to say to you.”

 

His voice is calm. There’s no fear, no anger. Not even hatred. Only resignation.

 

Akira clenches his avatar's fists so hard that his nails would have drawn blood if this had been his real body. He knows he has hit a dead end.  For now.

 

He turns without another word, his dress shoes tapping against the virtual stones, leaving his captive behind.

 

* * *

 

 

Akira stumbles as he removes his VR gear, leaning heavily against the wall as he catches his breath. His hands are shaking so he shoves them into his pockets, steeling himself with another deep breath as he steps out.

 

“How is the IGNIS Recovery Project going?” he demands.

 

“Sir, we are still trying to decrypt the security program that PLAYMAKER installed.  It will take some time to determine what kind of cipher was used.”  A projection of PLAYMAKER’s duel disk appears on the screen, rotating slowly. There is no sign of the AI. Akira knew it wouldn't be easy, not with a hacker of his calibre.

 

“Keep me updated,” he says as he walks back to his office.  SOL Technologies is still searching for PLAYMAKER, believing that he had escaped but not before losing his IGNIS. Akira doesn't care to enlighten them.  All he cares about is Aoi.

 

He spends the next hour pouring obsessively over hospital logs. Sifting through pages and pages of confidential medical data, accident reports and coma patients admitted in the last couple of days. Nothing.

 

He pauses on one photograph, blown up to cover the screen. Short brown hair framing closed eyes and a deathly pale countenance.   _Zaizen Aoi, 17, student. Comatose. Prognosis: unknown._

 

Nothing at all.

 

His fists slam against the keys and the screen shuts off, leaving him in darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

It's been seven days, thirteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes.

 

PLAYMAKER's avatar doesn’t look any worse for wear.  Akira had taken time to repair it, stitching back his code piece by piece the exact way he had taken it apart.  Dismemberment doesn’t have the same effect in a virtual space as it does in reality. The real horror isn’t so much the pain.  It is having parts of yourself slowly hacked off, one part at a time, never to be recovered again.  The fear of loss.  An avatar is a collection of code.  A shell.  PLAYMAKER’s ‘real self’ was still safe and whole somewhere outside of Link VRAINs.

 

The only thing that Akira can chip away here is his resistance. Pain was just a tool and Akira is only limited by his imagination.

 

PLAYMAKER’s eyes are closed, his chest moving in an imitation of breathing as more of a habit than any need for oxygen. Slowly, those striking green eyes open again and Akira squares his shoulders as grey smoke spews from the corners.

 

“Tell me. What did you do to her?”

 

As usual, PLAYMAKER says nothing and Akira’s vision becomes dyed in red.

 

* * *

 

Aoi’s hands are cold.  

 

Akira remembers holding onto them during the long nights. The pair of them huddled together for warmth behind a pile of shipping crates as the rain beat down the warehouse they had made their home. Her hands had been cold then as well; such small, delicate hands holding tightly onto his as she gazed up at him, so full of trust.

 

Now, her eyes are closed. The white, sterile room is silent, save for the steady hum of machinery.  He watches the lines dance across her heart monitor, the little electrical signals and the gentle rise and fall of her chest being the only signs that he hadn’t failed her completely yet.

 

“Aoi,” he whispers, pulling those small hands up to his cheek. He thinks about apologizing. Begging for her forgiveness for driving her to this.  For not recognizing what he was slowly doing to her.

 

But he doesn’t. Apologies aren’t what Aoi needs.

 

“Just wait for me a little longer.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s been thirty-three days, seven hours and fifteen minutes.  Akira is scrolling through medical records in a darkened room; face after gaunt face flashing across the screen. The blue light sears his eyes as he taps his keys mindlessly.  In the quiet gaps between the seconds, Akira finds himself drifting.

 

He is tired.

 

A sigh escapes his lips as he pushes his chair away, ready to turn in.  Until an admittance report catches his eye, dated roughly a week ago.

 

 _Fujiki Yuusaku_ , _17, student_. _Comatose. Prognosis: unknown._

 

The boy with striking green eyes that had found his sister before it had been too late.  Aoi’s classmate. Something about his face haunts him.

 

* * *

 

“I have all the time in the world,” Akira tells him.

 

PLAYMAKER answers with a bitten-off scream, his limbs spasming as he gradually increases the voltage. The surface of his body crackles with arcs of electricity and those striking green eyes are wide with agony. His voice grows coarser and coarser, despite the fact that there should be no real damage to his vocal chords.

 

After what felt like an age, he slumps back in his restraints, his face mostly shadowed by his hair, staring blankly ahead at nothing.  It was always unnerving to see those piercing eyes so glassy and lifeless. The Hero of Link VRAINS.  The criminal who injured his sister.

 

He lets out a sigh and slowly rises from his chair, brushing imaginary dust off his suit like a creature of habit.  Like clockwork, he descends from the steps and prepares to log out.

 

“...you’re... wrong.”

 

Akira’s brow furrows as his footfalls come to a halt.  The voice is so faint that he thought he had imagined it.  A glitch in the sensory data feeding through his VR equipment.

 

He turns, staring down the unmoving figure. “I’m sorry?”

 

“One,” PLAYMAKER says quietly.  “A human being’s lifespan is limited. Although this is a VR environment, both my time and Blue Angel’s will eventually run out.”

 

Akira takes a step forward, a chill run down his spine.  “Are you _threatening_ her?  Are you seriously trying to hold her life hostage for yours, you _scum-_ ”

 

“Two, I didn’t hurt your sister.”

 

 _How dare he-_  

 

White hot rage across his vision. Aoi’s screams fill his ears.   _how dare he how dare he when his sister was suffering, unconscious, screaming like she was being r i p p e d   a p a r t  while Akira only watched -_

 

But Akira’s rage and fury sputter out like dying embers at the look on PLAYMAKER’s face.

 

“Three.”

 

The monster who took his sister away gazes back at him with eyes that look all too human.

 

“I wanted to save her too.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i was thinking about how ready akira was to torture yuusaku before he learned the knights of hanoi were responsible...
> 
> so that stray thought spawned this terrible, terrible mistake
> 
> if you're still here, reading this piece of trash, i am so, so sorry


End file.
